‘Mitt’s VP’ app beat by seven hours in announcing Romney’s running mate

When it launched, the Mitt’s VP app made one simple statement: it would provide the first official information on who presidential candidate Mitt Romney had picked as his running mate. By the time users received their push notifications, however, NBC and others had already announced Paul Ryan as the next potential VP, The Atlantic notes. The app was beat by over seven hours by leaked reports, which (obviously) turned out to be correct. It’s the second time in a row that these “exclusive announcements” have failed: Obama tried the same thing in 2008, but news agencies still scooped his email and text announcements by a couple of hours.

At this point, nobody is really surprised by the leaks. Perpetual news cycles and the number of people involved in the decision make it almost impossible to keep secret. However, like Obama’s SMS system, Romney’s app hasn’t exactly failed. The campaign now has a home on the phones of Americans nationwide, many of whom will have signed in with Facebook or created a “My Mitt” account. We’ll have to see if the network it’s built is as successful as the one Obama ended up with, and whether campaigns continue to tout “exclusive” access for subscribers when it’s clear that the proffered information is likely to be common knowledge by the time it’s released.